| by CURVE Staff

Grotty: They’re not nice girls. But this is not a nice story.

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A dark, savage, unflinching satire of London’s lesbian subculture

 

DIVA's Danielle Mustarde catches up with award-winning writer and actress Izzy Tennyson to find out all about her new and debaucherous, east London-based show Grotty – a fierce new lesbian drama that takes no prisoners…

 

DIVA: Grotty is semi-autobiographical, is this the first time you've written something based on your own experiences?

Izzy Tennyson: Actually my last play, Brute, was also autobiographical and based on my school years. If anything, Grotty is more mixed up. It's based on my own experiences, but the plot has been dramatised and fictional elements added. I like basing my stories on real life because it makes them more authentic – I draw a lot dialogue from actual conversations. 

 

I'm not a moralist writer, and I am attracted to themes of “moral greyness”, our own bad behaviour, and people’s emotional complexity, and that is what you find in real people. What is different in Grotty from Brute, is that Brute was a one-woman show – basically an hour of monologue. The central character in Grotty, Rigby, is the narrator, so there’s still monologue, but there are eight other characters in the play, so we have a cast of other actresses on board. In that sense, Grotty is a lot more risky and exciting.

 

Why did you decide to focus on east London's lesbian scene?

That’s where I ended up for a while, and it’s a vibrant and harder-edged scene, which makes it a very exciting place to be. Most nights are on week nights, it’s a smaller community of women who all know and have rotated around each other, drugs, and different rules. It’s the sort of place that when you walk into a bar, you feel like the “new girl”. To get a feeling like that in London of all places is very special. 

 

They’re also very fashion conscious, so my dress sense changed very quickly. In fact, I tailored my whole identity to “fit in”. They really have a culture and an aesthetic which you’re either in or out of, which is a very different culture to the central, more commercial venues – mainly because it bleeds into other scenes, such as fetish and queer performance. This makes for a an explosive group of people sharing very small spaces.

 

Will people recognise the scene in the play?

Of course! Rigby, the main character, pinballs all over London, like I think a lot of gay people do to find out where they fit in. Like Rigby, I started central, at your more commercial venues like G-A-Y and Heaven but then ended up branching out into the fringes, which as a lesbian you have to do as most venues are catered towards gay men. We mention real clubs and venues in the piece. 

 

In terms of characters, they are very loosely based on some people on the scene a few years ago but they have been developed, dramatised and exaggerated a lot. People might recognise some of the "archetypal characters” that you run into on the east London scene though.

 

 

Tell us a little more about central character, Rigby.

Rigby is the narrator of the piece and based on myself a few years ago. To be honest, the girl is a mess. She launches herself into the lesbian scene on a totally reckless journey, is frequently drunk or on recreational drugs, and loves alienating her straight friends with stories about the more outrageous side of her gay lifestyle. She can also be shallow and materialistic, and she is very cynical with a cruel sense of humour. She is basically the sort of girl you can expect to vomit up over your flat if you bring her back to your place… 

 

I’m certainly not setting up Rigby to be some sort of saint, quite the opposite, but this isn’t the most sympathetic or romantic view of her either. There is a vulnerable side to Rigby, of course, I like to write nuanced, conflicted characters. My director Hannah Hauer-King is especially good at picking out those quick flashes of morality in my very hardened, grotesque characters, so you’ll more than likely get a glimpse of Rigby’s good side – even if she does everything to hide it.

 

The name Grotty, gives a sense that this will be a gritty, non-romantic view of the scene – would you agree?

Let’s be honest, as great as the scene is we don’t always get the best venues and the best nights. Rigby complains that lesbian nights are always on a Wednesday, or in a basement under a loud gay boy night. But that’s only one side of it. One of the things we explore in the play, is that there’s not just one model for being a lesbian.

 

My characters are a pretty varied lot. Some explore their lesbian identity by becoming “aggressive lads”, others through femininity. Others are as bitchy and cruel as the worst women you will find anywhere. Rigby keeps telling people how awful lesbians are, which obviously isn’t true (…even if she is good at finding ones who are). Some might criticise me for not showing a more idealised view of lesbian culture, but I also think the whole scene has grown up a lot since then. Lesbians are just as capable of behaving badly as anyone else.

 

You also explore current tensions within the lez/bi communities, what issues will Grotty touch on?

The main one is the generational tension between older and younger women. On the one hand the younger women don’t feel comfortable with the way that the older women rule the roost, and treat them as “fresh meat”. On the other, the older women feel resentment towards the younger ones for taking the scene for granted. They were the ones who helped create the scene, and faced a lot more prejudice, while they see the younger ones as having it easier. 

 

Grotty is on at the Bunker Theatre from 1 May to 26 May 2018. Check out Damsel Productions too – a theatre company doing lots for women. Grotty is supported by the Arts Council England.

 

 

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